Justin Kaufmann

Memo to aldermen: Sending a letter wastes taxpayer money

By: Justin Kaufmann | Nov. 2, 2011

Nov. 2, 2011

Today at the meeting of the Chicago City Council, there will be a public hearing for the Emanuel budget proposal. This is where Mayor Emanuel's budget gets the ol' eagle eye from the aldermen. And they are ready to fight. I mean, c'mon! They wrote a letter! I can just imagine 28 of the alderman all surrounding one old Gateway computer, hunting and pecking. "What's another word for disservice?? Irresponsible?" 

Also on the agenda today: Tickets for pot and outlawing plastic bags in big stores. But the really big  item that surfaced last week with very little coverage was news that the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is slashing the bouncy house budget from $400k to $200k. Wha??! Apparently, there will now be fewer bouncy houses available for neighborhood events and also a different check-out system, according to department commissioner Michelle Boone. I don't know. I called Alderman Ed Bus (D-53rd) for comment.

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Tips on removing your old city sticker

By: Justin Kaufmann | Nov. 1, 2011

Nov. 1, 2011

All right. Fine (or no fine). You win, city of Chicago. I razor bladed my windshield and destroyed my 2010-11 city sticker so I won't get a ticket:


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EXCLUSIVE: Coach Lovie's bye week wiretapped voicemails

By: Justin Kaufmann | Oct. 31, 2011

Oct. 31, 2011

This week, the Chicago Bears had a bye. This usually means that the players are given time to rest up, visit family and do non-football related things in various parts of the country. But not Coach Lovie. He takes football very serious. And he wishes his team would do the same.

What was Coach Lovie doing on Sunday? Well, he was at home watching all the games, preparing for the second half of the season. How do I know this? Well, I tapped his phone lines...again. What can I say, I practice 21st century journalist tactics. Coach Lovie likes to analyze the games, so he calls his fellow coaches and star players to get their thoughts on other teams around the NFL. The one problem? Nobody picks up.

Today, I bring you another installment of the Coach Lovie Voicemails!

 

 

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Aldermen want to decriminalize pot - media rushes to find stock photos

By: Justin Kaufmann | Oct. 28, 2011

Oct. 28, 2011

Hmmm, should I go with the silhouette smoking a joint stock photo?

Or just go with the generic marijuana plant?

Or heck, I'll just show a couple hippies at Woodstock: 

The City Council is going to vote on decriminalizing pot. Not in the "hey, smoke em if you got em" decriminalization, but more of a here's an orange ticket for your weed posession instead of a weekend trip to County. The aldermen are pushing this through, although the mayor and police chief are a bit mum (they are open to it, but need to see how it would work). It's like an episode of The Wire, but in Chicago over dime bags. The best part of this story was the trip down memory lane.

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Chicago's top 10 worst tickets

By: Justin Kaufmann | Oct. 27, 2011

Oct. 27, 2011

The recently proposed Chicago budget has a few novel ideas for generating additional revenue, all in an effort to plug a massive deficit. 

For instance, the Illinois state legislature just passed a bill that would allow cameras that track speeders to be installed in a large swath of the city. And Mayor Emanuel has warned city employees to pay up on any of their own existing citations and tickets.

Add to that the fact that my Facebook inbox and contact fields have started to fill up with people upset about tickets they recently received, and that got me thinking it was time to perform an important public service. 

I've spent the last couple of days doing research, and today I bring you a list of the 'Worst Ways in Chicago to Get a Ticket."

Improperly displaying your city sticker

This was well documented last week in a Chicago Tribune article, but if you keep your old city sticker on your car for decoration, even with a new sticker displayed above and/or below, you can get a $120 ticket.

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Bears listen to 'Occupy' demands, release Chris Harris

By: Justin Kaufmann | Oct. 27, 2011

Oct. 27, 2011

I'm going to start a new segment today called "Occupy-related media found on Facebook." There's really no way to tell if this stuff is real or taken out of context, so I preface my new segment with a disclaimer: This was found on Facebook. So take that with a grain of salt.

I saw this on a friend's post - a letter thrown out the window from the Chicago Board of Trade. This person doesn't like the protesters and has something to say about it (and the state of our economy). I linked it back to Reddit where it has 400+ comments, mostly arguing about how much teachers actually make.

So Occupy Chicago marched on City Hall yesterday to deliver a petition to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The petition is all about letting Occupy Chicago set up in Grant Park without being arrested. The mayor didn't come out, but a spokesperson did. If they don't hear anything from the mayor's office in two weeks, the protesters are threatening to come back again. I wasn't there yesterday, but did the protesters hit drums in that cavernous hallway? God that would have been annoying.

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Could Oakland happen here?

By: Justin Kaufmann | Oct. 26, 2011

Oct. 26, 2011

This is a huge news day. On huge news days, the task of ranking news stories becomes more difficult. So pay attention to what the local media chooses to be the lead stories. You could make a strong argument for Chicago budget fallout, Cook County budget fallout, veto session standoff in Springfield, Occupy Oakland/Chicago, Boeing's Dreamliner and more on Theo Epstein's arrival in Wrigleyville. I'll start with:

Occupy Oakland. It was bound to happen. With all the protests around the world, it was a matter of time before a town unleashed tear gas on a march. I would have put my money on Chicago or perhaps LA. But Oaktown? About 1,000 people marched on Oakland's city hall after they were displaced earlier in the day. The marchers didn't listen to the police, so the police decided this was a bad scene and gassed the crowd. Yikes. Now imagine if that crowd was bigger. Estimates from last weekend's Chicago march had the crowd over 3,000. And 130 were arrested peacefully for not leaving a park.

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The Bears are 4-3. Which, according to the players and coaches, is exactly where they want to be?

By: Justin Kaufmann | Oct. 24, 2011

Oct. 24, 2011

So the Bears are now 4-3. The rhetoric in the locker room yesterday was that this record is identical to last year's team - and look how that turned out. I hate to be the guy who says it, but wasn't the plan to be better than last year? 4-3 is fine for an upstart, but for a team that has Super Bowl aspirations, 4-3 seems to be a bit of a letdown. Maybe they can run the table and end 13-3. Maybe lose a few and still make the playoffs. But make no mistake: this team has yet to impress us. The last two games have shown glimpses of what we expected this year, but the Jekyll and Hyde Bears still have work to do.

Chicago is not a 'slow-start' town. Fans respect when teams come out of the gates blazing. We jump on quick and ride the train. We don't have a lot of patience for a .500 performance at the break. We are spoiled.  Blame it on Ditka and Jordan, I guess.

Here are some other random observations from yesterday's game:

I had a technical snafu yesterday. Set my DVR for the game and made sure to have the ole' extended play cover if the game went past it's alotted time on the Comcast grid. Well, the game did and the DVR didn't. So with about 5 min to play, the game ended for me.

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